Welcome to my blog!
I do reviews of Doctor Who from 1963 to present, plus spin-offs. As well as this I do non-Doctor Who related reviews of Grimm, The Walking Dead, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, Blake's 7, The Crown, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Sherlock, Firefly, Daredevil and many more.
There are also reviews of more than 400 films.

Sunday, 29 September 2013

“I don't understand. I don't understand how this all
happens. How we go through this. I mean I knew her, and then she's, there's
just a body, and I don't understand why she can't just get back in it and not
be dead any more. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid, and, and Xander's crying
and not talking, and I was having fruit punch and I thought, well, Joyce will
never have any more fruit punch, ever. And she'll never have eggs, or yawn, or
brush her hair, not ever and no one will explain to me why."

Ok, deep breath. I can do this. Even though this episode
hurts so much. DAMN YOU, WHEDON!

Joss himself write and directs, and sets such a sombre and
unsettling mood, in large part through the extended use of silences to convey
not only grief but also the awkwardness of not knowing what to do, what is
socially acceptable, and to what extent we should broadcast our feelings when
we lose a loved one. The scoobies are all young and just feeling their way
through all this, and the episode consists, McLuhan-like, in characters not communicating and being incapable of
reconciling their feelings, their feeling about how they should be feeling, and whatever the rules are supposed to be when
the sky falls in. One theme of this episode is the silliness, and
simultaneously the necessity of social conventions at times of extreme emotion.
Anya may provide the comic relief in breaking these rules, but at least she’s
being herself. This contrasts with Xander’s lack of eloquence as he punches the
wall and Willow’s displaced distress over what to wear.

Another deep breath. New paragraph. And hopefully a shorter
one.

The opening scenes are brutal, presenting Buffy and the
viewer with a body, an object, that is not
Joyce. We feel for Buffy in the eternity before the paramedics arrive and both
we and her are punched in the face with the brutality of the language they use:
”Try not to disturb the body”. Even
more brutal is Buffy having to break the news to Dawn. We know what’s coming as
we see Dawn in her art class, adrift in the everyday concerns of a teenage
girl, and as we hear her teacher speak of “The negative space around the object”. That’s a fair description
of what this episode is about if ever I saw one.

We cut to scenes of the scoobies’ silent reactions to the
news. We are not used to seeing them so helpless and distressed, but this is
nothing so manageable as a monster. Death by natural causes is the most
harrowing thing that has ever happened in Buffy, and it hits everything like a
train. No one reacts well. No one really knows how to. Except Tara, who has
experience bereavement before, and who seems less awkward with Buffy than
before. No one can cope with the lack of
a simple linear cause or, in the case of Buffy, with not being able to know for
certain that there is nothing she could have done.

“You're a
rapist scumbag just one tick short of a murderer. I've forgotten, do you take
sugar with your tea?”

Before I go
on to this episode and its rather harrowing events and themes, I can’t help
mentioning that this episode is directed by Jonathan Frakes, Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He ain’t
bad.

This episode
covers some rather heavy themes and deepens our concerns about the ethics of
what the Dollhouse is doing and whether, whatever Adelle might try and convince
herself, the Dolls truly consent to what is being done to them. We also see an entrenchment
of Topher’s ethical troubles. Most of all, we are exposed to the full horror
and tragedy of Sierra, a character whose pain we had never suspected.

Flashbacks
show us Sierra as she was before any of this happened: a free- spirited Australian
tourist on Venice Beach, an amateur artist and easy prey for Nolan, a creepy
and predatory pervert who, sadly, combines this with being rich and powerful.
She is only an active because of his sexual abuse and disturbing machinations,
and cannot be said to have in any way consented to being made an active. Most
upsettingly of all, Nolan is still seeing her as a client, which can only be
considered as rape. Yes, Adelle is furious and throws the book at him, but the
episode ends with Sierra still as an active with a year of her contract yet to
run. The only concession she gets at all is to get her memory wiped to remove
the events of this day. It’s all very dark. Fortunately, all this is balanced
by the very sweet love between Sierra and Victor, which makes this episode less
harrowing then is otherwise would have been.

Topher, with
his new found conscience, is left to face the full horror of what he has done
to Sierra while recruiting her. He may have been ignorant of Nolan’s motives,
but he is left with deep misgivings about his role and things he has done. He
is intelligent but juvenile; this is the first time he has ever considered the
ethics of what he does and he has to go through it alone. Adelle may be
something of a mother figure to him, but she has he own ethical blind spots. He
may collaborate with Boyd in covering up Nolan’s death, but this act of washing
away the blood is an apt metaphor.

Oh, and did
you notice the graffiti on the inside of Echo’s pod? The story arc proceeds apace.

“Lovely. So
you're saying that we've imprinted an active as a serial killer and blindly let
him loose upon the streets.”

Yes, the
Dollhouse reviews resume. So, without further ado… on one level this is a story
of the week about a misogynistic serial killer called Terry, his creepy doings
and habits, and the fact that his influential father is able to use the
Dollhouse to deal with his wayward son rather than leave things to the justice
system as lesser mortals do. On another level, this advances the themes of the
season and begins the acceleration of the plot threads towards the season
finale. From this point, things are liable to move just a little too quickly, courtesy
of Fox not being very nice to Joss Whedon, again.

This is also
the point where Topher begins to have ethical issues with what the Dollhouse is
doing, which at this point is so at odds with his character to date that Adelle
reacts with mock amusement at his sudden development of a conscience. This is
linked to the fact that this episode sees the Dollhouse, and active technology,
being used in new ways. After Terry’s capture, which results in severe injuries
towards him, his mind is put into Victors’ body. This is an acting tour de force
from Enver Gjokaj, but we’re left a
little uneasy at what the Dollhouse is doing. And this is before Victor escapes
into the streets with the mind of a serial killer.

Linked to
this is the fact that Terry himself acts as a sort of metaphor for the Dollhouse’s
clients (remember, this includes Adelle) and their attitudes to the dolls/people.
The character makes us, and them, think uncomfortable thoughts.

Things get
even murkier when Adelle convinces Topher to salvage the situation by means of
a remote wipe. The fact that only Alpha has previously attempted this hints at
it not being a good idea in the long run; this is our first inkling that Active
technology will eventually go too far.

Interesting
things happen to Echo, too. She ends the episode with Terry still inside her
head, unwiped and accessible to her. It is also bizarre to see Echo suddenly
reverting to doll form in public, asking if she fell asleep.

For all of
its thematic unity, this episode very much points the way forward towards the
finale. This is where the pace picks up. Hold tight.

Friday, 27 September 2013

Oh dear. It’s
been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve got no real excuse either. Just living and that.
Home life, work, Doctor Who conventions, pod casting, and two gorgeous cats.
And throughout all this time I’ve carried on making my usual blog notes for
many things I’ve watched, both film and telly. There is a bit of a backlog for
Dollhouse(notes completed up ‘til the end), Grimm, Buffy, Angel, and, well- how
should I say this?- two entire television series right up until the end! One of
them is four seasons long!

So I’d
better get on with it. After all, I’m a massive Marvel geek, albeit one who
stopped getting the comics with any regularity back in the 90’s, and rapidly
becoming just as much of a Whedon geek. Plus, this is the first time ever that I’ve seen a Joss Whedon show
on its original transmission. Well, I say original transmission, but we Limeys
are seeing this a full three days after
you Yanks!

SO, what to
make of this first episode? Joss himself both co-writes and directs, and his
fingerprints are all over both the dialogue and the general look of the thing.
Of course, being a first episode, it’s a bit of a blur and it will take a bit
of a while to get to know all the characters. But the supposedly late Agent Coulson
is back from the dead with his dialogue made suitably snappy for him to be able
to star in a Joss Whedon show. There is also a white coated scientist who is,
at this point, notable only for being played by Ron Glass. More prominently, we have Agents Hill and Ward,
technical British people Fitz and Simmons, and some other people. Most importantly,
we have Skye, a hacker turned agent and Mike, a superhero played by none other
than J. August Richards, who suddenly
looks older than he did in Angel.

The opening dialogue
recalls Torchwood in that it is set
after the events of The Avengers and
the “battle of New York” and the full outing of superheroes, and an alien
invasion into the bargain. Everything has changed and we’ve got to be ready. In
addition, the scenes with Mike at the beginning remind me of the first season
of Heroes, but, mercifully, nowhere
near as long winded. As ever, Whedon has
fun with the tropes. Mike’s story echoes that of Spider-Man’s origin and also
that of many Marvel heroes. Wonderfully, Mike is quite aware of this,
responding to the doctor who gave him his powers, when she tells him that it’s
a disaster that “No, it’s an origin story”. Even more gloriously, Skye is set
up early on as an agent of a mysterious organisation and antagonist, only to be
revealed as a lone wolf hacker and captured within the first few minutes.

Skye
compares Shield, while in conversation with Mike, to men in black and makes
them sound sinister, but it seems that Whedon is anxious to avoid this cliché and
takes pains to emphasise that they are in fact quite nice. This immediately
gives the show a very different feel to Dollhouse,
in spite of some superficial similarities.

Marvel
Universe geekery is kept quite subtle, although there is an obligatory
reference to Professor Erksine and the Super Soldier Serum. There are numerous
mysteries, not the least of which is who gave Mike his powers, but for me the
most pressing point is whether Mike is going to stay on and join the team. I
get the impression that he isn’t dead, and Richards is far too good an actor to
waste as a one off guest star.

One more
thing: I had a red car called Lola way
before Agent Coulson did! Just sayin’. That aside, this were well good.